Max Verstappen dominated the Hungarian Grand Prix, securing a record-setting 12th consecutive victory for Red Bull and finishing ahead of Lando Norris.
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Verstappen, the championship leader, extended his points advantage to beyond 100 after passing pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton at the start and leading every lap to record a comfortable victory. Norris finished second, while Verstappen’s team mate Sergio Perez climbed from ninth on the grid to complete the podium.
The top eight started the race on medium compound tyres, with Hamilton on pole for the first time since 2021. When the lights went out, Verstappen made an excellent start, took the inside line into turn one and assumed the lead. Hamilton was passed on the exit of turn one by both McLarens, Oscar Piastri and Norris.
Further down the order, Zhou Guanyu had a poor getaway from fifth and dropped places. Under braking for turn one he collided with Daniel Ricciardo, which pushed the AlphaTauri into Esteban Ocon and caused Ocon to clip Alpine team mate Pierre Gasly. Both Alpine cars sustained race-ending damage, though the incident did not trigger a Safety Car. Zhou later received a five-second time penalty for causing the collision.
With Verstappen in control, he opened a small gap of around two seconds to Piastri by lap seven as the McLarens moved away from Hamilton’s Mercedes. Several teams opted for early stops onto the hard tyres before lap ten, but the leading trio stayed out.
Hamilton was the first of the leading group to pit for hard tyres at the end of lap 16. The McLarens pitted over the next two laps; Norris managed to undercut his team mate to emerge ahead. Verstappen extended his first stint, switching from mediums to hards on lap 23 and rejoining about six seconds clear of Norris.
Over the second stint Verstappen steadily increased his advantage, stretching it to more than 10 seconds by halfway through the race. Perez closed on Hamilton in fourth and then stopped for a second set of medium tyres. The McLarens followed with medium tyres as well, holding position ahead of Perez for the moment.
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Perez eventually pressured Piastri and executed a clean move around the outside of turn one to split the McLaren drivers. Hamilton then pitted from second and rejoined in fifth behind Perez and Piastri, leaving Verstappen as the last of the front-runners to take a second stop.
Verstappen made his final stop on lap 51 for medium tyres and emerged from the pit lane 12 seconds ahead of Norris. He quickly increased that margin further by setting the fastest lap of the race. Hamilton closed on and overtook Piastri for fourth at turn one.
For the remaining laps Verstappen controlled the race at a pace faster than anyone else and crossed the line after 70 laps to claim his ninth win of the season. The result also marks Red Bull’s record 12th straight victory.
Norris finished second for the second consecutive race. Hamilton came close to completing a British Grand Prix podium reunion but lost out to Perez, who took third. Piastri dropped back to fifth, finishing more than 20 seconds behind Hamilton.
George Russell recovered to sixth after benefitting from a five-second penalty applied to Charles Leclerc for speeding in the pit lane. Carlos Sainz Jnr crossed the line in eighth, while the two Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll rounded out the top ten.
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2023 Hungarian Grand Prix reaction
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